Review of "live" Palm Tungsten T. Part Two, Program

Yes, it does not rejoice users of Palm - to the soft part of the Palm Tungsten T (we call it for brevity TT) are not so many changes, both in the hardware. They certainly are, but for the most part hidden from the user. I do not know, unfortunately, or fortunately, but I'm picking up a Tt, he felt as confident as his old, trusted Palm'om. Expect from the new system which some transcendental opportunities are likely to be disappointed - all very standard, although an order of magnitude more beautiful than the Palm OS 4.1. Contributes to this, in particular, high resolution screen and re-drawn ikonochki, creating a feeling of newness of the operating system and product in general. This feeling never leaves when working with several specially sharpened for the fifth OSes applications and, perhaps, that all ...

Left to right: Tungsten T and Sony NR 70V at full brightness ...

Certainly not bad, that Palm keeps true to the tradition, but it was too much had been around the new operating system calls. Too many to put up with small, in my opinion, the amount of improvements. Although, the real pros in this conservative still there. For example, the new Palm I have no problem transpired all the vital information stored on your PC as a backup: all kinds of contacts, addresses, phone numbers, business and the date. With all the programs is somewhat worse, not because they do not work, but because the resolution of 160 by 160 pixels is already difficult to read on the screen of advanced Tungsten. To its credit, software companies are already quite a lot of programs that support the fifth system, and all their favorite replacement of standard applications, I easily installed in already updated form. On the other hand, the programmers had enough time to properly prepare, with the announcement of the release of Palm OS. Also, apparently, the old loyalty interface aims to not scare away the old users, already accustomed to the "desktop" in their pockets mate. Then the interface is really gained popularity among users and has proved its competence ... As for the standard Palm applications also need to say a few words. Programmers do not particularly strained, creating products and embedded applications. Past have always been, to put it mildly, some austerity. And, so much so that most users barely understand what's going with his head caught the pool Internet in order to find them a worthy replacement. To be honest, I expected that it is this situation in the new OS will be corrected and made a mistake. Applications, though now work faster, virtually indistinguishable from their ancestors. The only major innovation - now they all work with the firm five-way joystick Tungsten T - NavPad. In my opinion, this is done in order not to lose the third-party developers - a huge number of companies, large and small, and enthusiasts singles who struggled on Palm-soil. It's a shame that the new thing has to "finish" with the software point of view, to convey to the normal level on their own, and still pay money for it, because software for the Palm is not so cheap - between $ 20 and above per softiny. Now specifically. Large enough changes were made to the settings panel. Now it is broken into 4 parts: General, Communications, Personal, Other. In principle, a set of options has not changed. Now they are just better sorted, in particular, the last point is made for setting up programs, installed by the user. Multimedia until there is only as unpretentious voice recorder, made once again in the best traditions of Palm - as simple as possible. That is, recording can be done, listen to and delete the rest, apparently left to the mercy of third party developers. Despite the presence of headphone jacks, a music player bundled software is not, although it would seem he should be among the key embedded applications. Its development is currently engaged in RealNetwork, which signed an agreement with Palm. RealOne Player Mobile, which will play MP3-music, is not ready yet, but it is a beta version can be downloaded from the developer before the end of this year. However, Tungsten T is gradually starting to sound, thanks to that third party - company Aerodrome Software with its beta AeroPlayer'a, play music in an open format, Ogg Vorbis. This is a new compression standard, is gaining momentum and gotovschiysya a serious competitor to commercial MP3. However, as we already told him the news. However, more recently came the news that the Tungsten T can now proudly sound. All, and RealNetworks, with its announcements, and company Aerodrome Software with a beta version of the first audio player for Tungsten T, ahead of some NormSoft. Last week, the company reported to the surrender of the commercial version of a similar product. Player called Pocket Tunes 1.0 supports, in contrast to yet finished AeroPlayer'a two formats for compression of audio files - open Ogg Vorbis and WAV. In the future razarbotchiki promise to supplement the list and the popular MP3, but the bid made yet for Ogg Vorbis. Programs that provide wireless connectivity to today's popular protocol Bluetooth, too, do not shine and newness as two peas similar to what comes with Bluetooth card for the previous models of Palm. It's nice that being part of the user's disk will be a surprise in the form of quite decent web browser and email client. This is true, yet too far from what users indulge in Pocket PC 2002, but already much better than all the previous exercises on this topic. Of the new built-in applications is also worth noting the improved clock called World Clock, which makes it easy to operate with different time zones and are called when the device is turned off by pressing the central joystick button. So long as Palm is all too familiar Palm'om: to the users the same only slightly updated interface, virtually unchanging set of embedded applications. Oh, if I hear programmers - has flown! This field is not plowed ... The authors, translation:

Alexander Eremeev